November 03, 2010

As long as Speaker-in-waiting Boehner doesn't get carried away with all the schmooze being directed his way in regards to "bi-partisanship", we'll get by this Socialist Progressive threat to the American Way without further damage, I think.

I went to the range today. Took two SKSs that I put aftermarket sights on yestiddy while the returns were coming in and the gudwife was away on her poll-watching duties.

One rifle has the Tech-Sights 200 rear GI-style sight on it, but I can't get the rear down enough to make the rifle sight in at over 50 yards. I have to shoot at the enemy's peepee to get a chest hit. Oh, well, the idea is to cause CASUALTIES, so if I actually hit the enemy there, he's a casualty. I think I'll try to dummy up some sort of Firesight for the front, and mount it with ears to protect it instead of the hood that's there now.

The other rifle has a UTG 640T5 mount which replaces the action dust cover, and a Leapers 4X32 mildot scope. A fine combo, I would have been in business with that rifle except it had a firing-pin or hammer spring problem, and is failing to ignite about half the rounds the hammer falls on. I've not had the bolt apart on it yet, it's probably a dirt issue or some hardened cosmoline in the bolt's inner workings. When I get it restored to reliability, it's going to be a great little battle carbine, with a folding bipod replacing the bayonet blade.

I tested the little Colt Government Model 380, designed by JMB (PBUH), with three different kinds of ammo, and it's new recoil management system by Bedair performed flawlessly. Gone is the annoying "slinky" problem caused by the half-length recoil spring guide rod shucking the recoil spring inside the spring housing. The new full-length stainless guide rod performed perfectly with two kinds of bonded HP ammo and the usual practice ball. The pistol is now my primary winter carry piece at TerrCon conditions less than Extreme. I dug out a Bianchi leather pancake belt-slide holster to carry it with, and one of my handmade nylon single magazine carriers for the spare mag. I've loaded the weapon with (chambered) Federal Hydra-Shok 90-grain Bonded, the mag full of Federal Classic rounded-form HP. The backup mag is PMC 95-gr hardball.

UPDATE: 110410: 0720 PDT: Oops, that Bianchi holster is a no-no for the little Colt. It was designed for similar sized pistol, a Walther PPK, so the pistol fits properly and the retaining strap is the correct length, but while strapping it on, all of a sudden, I heard a "click", and looked down to see that the magazine had released. After determining that the charged pistol was still "cocked and locked", I pushed the magazine back in without taking the pistol out of the holster. I just barely touched the side of the holster and the mag catch released again. Now I have to research how to modify the holster to relieve pressure on the magazine catch. I have a shoulder rig that exposes the mag catch, and is safe, and the Colt also conceals nicely in my photographer's vest side pocket. I'll probably just buy another pancake holster, though, that's the safest thing to do.

The GOP goes through a "long knives" session shortly, and Mister Chairman Steele gets the boot, because he won't make up to the TEA Party people. Darth Rove survives the boot, because he holds no office within the GOP, and he gets his walking-around money from Fox News, not from the GOP.

Nancy Pelosi does NOT "go crazy" with a lame-duck session which tries to ram all the remaining lefty agenda crap down our throats, in fact she won't be the Speaker, and will resign in just days.

Stenny Hoyer, the interim Speaker during the lame-duck session, will start the Big Schmooze of 2012, in which the (D)onks try to convince the middle-road voters that they are really (D)onk centrists after all, and help, we've been held hostage by Lefty Zombies wearing Congress-monkey suits for the past 22 months. Strangely, people will tend to believe Stenny Hoyer, which is precisely why he's in there.

Not ready to guess 2012 yet, but I'm going to say right now that the "Big Schmooze" has a 50% chance of working in the 2012 election.

November 01, 2010

The welter of attack ads from both sides of the political spectrum is disheartening, to say the least, but the reason for most of them is like a "tacking duel" in a sailboat race: once your competitor starts tacking, you have to tack also lest the competitor either steal your wind and you slow down, or the competitor gains course and track advantage and wins outright. If the (D)onk goes negative, and most of them start these duels, then the (R)ethuglican has to as well.

It's all over tomorrow, except for the sore-loser complex, which I predict we'll se a LOT of.

Have readers noticed the last ten days' theme of the (D)onk attack ads? It's been consistent: The opponent took $$$ from Evil Big Banks and/or Oil Companies. As they say on sportz-blather, "C'mon man...". The fact is, EVERYONE takes $$$ from EVERYWHERE, that's the nature of the political game. We can wish it wasn't, but the Supremes stand in our way if we want to limit campaign contributions.

No, the solution isn't "Voter-Owned Elections" where public money is doled out evenly to candidates, first come, all served. We tried that here in Portland, OR, and most have concluded it was a failure. First of all, it achieved only the result of taking City Council elections, and adding a quarter-mil to their price tag, because when those NOT opting for the public money turned it down, they were then free to outspend their opponents by that much and more. The candidates who HAVE taken the public money have been a motley lot of pirates, for the most part. One put her family on the campaign payroll, then didn't campaign. The City tried to recover those dollars, but has failed so far, since it's only a civil matter, and the defendants in the lawsuit have left the State and have no property anywhere else to seize. One gadfly DID win a seat, but so far, she's still a gadfly, and isn't taken seriously by the common sense bloc or their opposites, the spendthrift, we-love-queers-and-the-homeless-and-all-bicycle-riders faction led by the queer Mayor. Nope,"voter-owned elections" aren't the answer, either.

The answer is to put up with the bullshit, and like this year, keep voting to change the faces. Eventually, we may get to the point where the faces change often enough that the yuppoids who run for office will find real jobs, or become dope-smoking hippie mary-jane farmers. I'm sorry, I'm repetitive this morning.

A day more of screaming lies, a wake-up, and then it's over. Any change to the present dictatorship of the Left will be good for America, so I'm hopeful.

UPDATE: 103010 0028 PDT: The Prez had to come on TeeVee and talk about the incidents. Two bombs found, mixed explosives of high order, both on planes out of Yemen, one caught at Dubai and one in England. Both bombs were in packages addressed to Jewish organizations in Chicago. Other air freight aircraft were intercepted, but with unknown results. No info is forthcoming on triggers/fuzes for the bombs. Semtex and PETN is being talked about as explosive materials, nasty stuff, but not the latest or the baddest. Early on, there was a report that one aircrew member detected a RADIOLOGICAL emission coming from one of the bombs. That sounds like the definition of a "dirty bomb" to me. If Al-Q is now into dirty bombs, it's time to take off the gloves with the muzzies.

First, there's this package express mess. Then, all of a sudden, new passenger strictures were announced at Eastern airports, including a new mandatory pat-down and rapid deployment of full-body scanners ahead of planned phase-in.

I've responded. I've upgraded my carry to a high-capacity weapon, and I will institute my high-security parking lot approach plan, which involves making a pass or two around the mall parking lots before I park and go into a store. I'll top off my gas tank when I go out today, and keep it topped off until a few days after the election.

MORE ON THE UPDATE: Crap-O-Matic! I just realized that I have M35 truck parts and gun parts coming in from various places in various packages. Better start following those tracking numbers, I guess. So, if any of you unbelievers out there still think I suck at intell, you may tender your heartfelt apologies in comments....

October 28, 2010

Yes, HATE. Public employees are just workers for another employer, but this year, the year (supposedly) of the re-ascendancy of the Right, public employees are in the HATE spotlight.

It's OK being in the spotlight, and it's even OK exposing the excessive salaries and retirements given the top brass in various State agencies (most are pols who lost elections and get rewarded for their loyalty), but it's NOT OK to bash all public employees just because they work for the state and local governments, have benefits, and earn a publicly-funded retirement.

Here's the issue, as I see it: the States have done a piss-poor job of managing their financial resources, and to get the heat off of themselves, the financial managers have decided to allow the rabid assholes (yes, they DESERVE that designation) of the opposition to government functions to crucify state employees, just so they, the bean-counters, don't get looked at in too harsh a light.

The properly-run State government puts money aside for a "rainy day", and almost none of them have been doing that.

The properly-run State government has a variability built into it's obligations, some sort of proper scheme where they can reduce payments to people they owe money to when money just isn't there. Almost no State does that.

The properly-run State government doesn't just sharpen a stick and poke it in the eye of it's employees, nor does it give in to demands that said employees lose their pension funds or stop getting their retirement incomes, but THOSE demands have been levied as well.

I'm a retired public employee. During my employment as an Enforcement Deputy Sheriff, I put MY ass on the line as a shield for this society more than once, and as such a warrior, I was GUARANTEED a retirement of 2% of the average of my final 3 years' salaries for every year I served. That's retirement at 50% of my salary after 25 years, and overtime pay IS included in those salary computations, so my actual retirement is a little over 60%, because I worked thousands of hours of overtime during my employment, and bumped that up to around $20K or better worth of overtime during the final (computation) years. All this is perfectly legal, and was even encouraged (the overtime), but now, all the right-wing candidates want to rip off part (if not all) of my retirement. These same bozos, who, by the way, have no plans to actually give BACK any taxes, just "Reduce" them, also want to rip off money deposited in the retirement accounts of currently-serving employees.

Here's how bad it is. There's a tight race for Governor in this State (Oregon). The (D)onk candidate is a guy who already served two terms a decade ago, and upon leaving office, declared that the State was "ungovernable". He's back to wet his beak again. His opposition is a nice guy who used to play NBA basketball, Chris Dudley. Dudley's campaign has invited NJ Gov. Chris Christie here to campaign on his behalf, and Tubby the One-Note Tuba will be here today, likely bleating about fat hogs at the trough (public employees). Of course, he's not one to talk about fat hogs, being at leat 150# overweight. That is Christie's shtick, though, so we will hear it again today. Haley Barbour is also here, and we will hear echoes of Christie's bleat from HIM as well, I imagine.

Just so you don't think I'm going all leftist on y'all (I've already voted, and I voted for Dudley), the way I see it is that public employee pay is a matter of business between those public employees and their employer, and it's all negotiable, but only at the time of hiring. No one holds a gun to the heads of the State mavens who negotiate labor contracts with public employees, and anyone who tells you that there is such intimidation is lying to you. Most public employees can't strike in this state, and have zero way to bring any sort of pressure on their employers.

There are CONTRACTS involved (yes, those pieces of paper that the Constitution recognizes as so important), and in mine, for example, I was guaranteed an annual cost-of-living allowance (2% or less, don't wet your pants) as my ONLY adjustment to my retired pay. A Judge took that away from me, on the flimsy excuse that the State overpaid my pension account by a few percentage points one year (boom year, in the height of the dot.com boom) and was entitled to withhold the COLA because I "cut a fat hog". My contract has a SAVINGS CLAUSE in it, just ask any lawyer what that is supposed to mean.

I didn't do a thing, and have no way of refusing the State's computation of my retired pay if I wanted to. I can refuse ALL the retired pay, FOREVER, but I can't modify the compensation amount, and I can only do that once, at retirement.

Am I one of the "fat hogs" all the Right is screaming about? You decide, but when you line up with the Right to rip off the retirement compensation I've earned BY CONTRACT, you'd better be bulletproof, because I consider any attempt to remove my retirement pay a robbery by force, and I will resist by force. I've lived a good life, and anyone who wants me to die broke may get their wish, I'm not omnipotent, but I will take a few robbers with me, that much is GUARANTEED. I'm not alone, either. There are lots of others who feel just as strongly about getting ripped off.

Politically, we public retirees are a time bomb. For example, there are just over 30,000 retirees in Oregon who fell under the Judge's illegal rip-off order (which has been overturned by the State Supremes, but I still haven't been paid the back COLAs withheld for 4 years). If all 30,000 of us start voting as a block, we CONTROL this state, that's how close things are politically now.

Both parties better think about that, put away their meat axes, and come to the bargaining table in good faith. We retirees will negotiate, up to a point, maybe even take IOUs for part of our pay, but those will be locked-in IOUs, not some cheap-ass paper like the Governator down in Kali is issuing.

October 26, 2010

Reformatting Life: Today marked 40 pounds of weight loss. 163 pounds slim, your blogger is now. I've been working my caloric intake back up, am now up to 1300-1400 calories daily, with 130-140 grams of carbs and 35-40 grams of fat. That includes up to 200 grams of protein. We'll see if I can keep the blubber off at this level of food intake. I celebrated the 40# mark with a restaurant breakfast of pan-fried oysters, scrambled eggs, and sourdough toast. I skipped the potatoes which came with the meal, and ate a half-slice of unbuttered toast. That meal worked out to less than 500 calories with cream in my coffees. My entire day's protein was in there, though, with two eggs and 3.5 oz of oysters.

Winter Readiness: Took the final steps for winter readiness with the M-35A2 truck. Bought 3 sets of single cam-lock tire chains + tighteners for it, and my six each, five-gallon Diesel fuel jugs are one day away. Here's the report from the Mountain (My Mountain). Photo below:

Blizzardly day on the Mountain, but you can see that there's damn little vegetation or rocks still showing in that picture. That's all buried. Around my altitude, we have the freezing level 2800 feet above my head, so it's just raw, nasty and showery here. A quick look at the "28km Water Vapor Satellite Loop" on NOAA shows plenty more where this came from, out to the west and northwest of us, all the way back to Kamchatka, Russia, where there's some nastiness brewing up that should be here for Halloween. The hollering about La Nina seems to be right on the mark so far. Put it this way: when the practical denizens of the Deep South take such an interest in what is primarily a Pacific Northwest weather issue, it's an ISSUE! But, don't just take the words of a couple of crusty old Deputies with weather eyes, here's the Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Washington saying similar things.

Political Notes: How about those Obamas, heading to India for what can't be described any other way than as an Imperial Visit? How about the First Lady Michelle Obama planning to sit down with India's prostitutes? Getting pointers, is she? From what I've heard, she doesn't need any, she's screwed the taxpayers ever since her Empress-ness has been in the White House. Oh, well, at least the Obamas won't be anywhere handy to US political reporters so that they might have to respond to questions about a (D)onk beat-down in the election.

All the news. I write it, now you read it, and we'll both cry over it when appropriate.

...and I can hardly wait for the election to be over. Look, I know it's important, but the grinding lies spewed every three minutes on the TeeVee get to me.

There's got to be a way to have our First Amendment and excise out all this paid lying. It isn't just liberals lying, either. We have some ring-tailed SOBs running from the Republican side this year up in the PacNorWest.

I think a volunteer Citizen's Board, with members nominated evenly by both parties (OK, the little parties, too) should hear complaints about campaign lies and even plain-jane deceptions ("I created a zillion jobs"). When un-truth is found, the campaigns which promoted it, AND the 527s which paid for it, would both have large fines levied against a surety bond which they would have to put up before they could campaign.

The fine money would go to the pol's opponent. this would give HUGE incentive to not lie, since you'd be funding your opponent's campaign if you did.

The Citizen's Truth Board would operate up until the very Election Day, and would sit daily. It's rulings would be final, not challengeable in court.

That's how I would let citizens get their elections back from the bigs.

What about close elections in minority districts that the (D)s swept the past two Congressional terms? There will be a few of those close elections. Is there any potential for Election Day violence from that angle, maybe the Philly Black Panther thing on steroids?

If it's not too late to get an absentee ballot, at least the adults in your family don't have to be exposed. What's more, you can video-tape the entire ballot-sealing and drop-off process, unlike polling paces, which can't be video-taped. If there's a hint of impropriety in your voting precinct with the absentee ballots, you would be able to PROVE that yours got to the right place.

If you haven't been to the range lately, it might be a good time to re-hone those rusty skills. If your ammo stocks are getting low, ammo is a bargain right now, but that price break could be brief if the (D)onks come back to the lame-duck session determined to take down the 2A.

(D)emocrats can be sore losers, and something tells me that Queen Pelosi might be the sorest loser of them all, if and when she loses the House. If the House AND Senate go away for the (D)s, they will go into full crisis mode to try to enact ALL the rest of their Marxist agenda before turning over control of the Congress in January, and that assumes that they WILL turn it over.

These could be parlous times, brothers and sisters. If we're steeled and ready for issues as they arrive, this nation might yet survive this 2-year attempted coup-d'etat. If we just pull our lounge chairs closer to the TeeVee and turn up the football game, by the time the BCS championship is decided, the end of this Republic might be decided as well.

October 11, 2010

It's only 3 weeks until the election, and already, the loose coalition of the Right is getting even looser! The (D)onks are doing their damnedest to break apart that coalition.

Don't let them succeed.

The mission, and you CAN'T choose to ignore or refuse it, is to THROW THE BUMS OUT! Fire Pelosi and Reid (and fire all (D)onks, no matter what their "NRA Rating" is).

Whether you draw or write to support the Right, now is NOT the time for your personal agendas of socio-religious engineering. You HEAR me, cartoonist Muir?

It's time to STAY ON TARGET!

Basically put, if we don't get the job done, due to petty internecine differences among flavors of the Right, we have just doomed the Constitution to Hell, and many of ourselves with it.

We have one chance, and if we stumble this time, we won't get a "do over" in 2012. By that time, Obama and Pelosi will have installed themselves as a Mark One mod Zero dictatorship, and we will lose a lot of good people trying to dislodge them by force.

We are looking at Freedom's Last Chance in three weeks. The Last Chance before the Last Stand.

September 23, 2010

I am outraged. Now, bearing in mind that Bob Woodward, being a member of the liberal elite, likely didn't hammer Obama as hard as he could have, just this one slip by our weak President is enough to call for his resignation. Yes, I know that would put the anti-intellectual fop Biden in charge for the next two years, but I can deal with a doofus Prez a lot easier than I can deal with the current devious, sell-us-down-the-river scumbag currently living large off of all of us, and trying to buy his way into permanent power with my grandchild's yet-unearned wages.

Obama must go. This statement, no matter how much he tried to qualify it, shows that he isn't fit to lead a crew of grease monkeys in an oil-change emporium. I'm not going to try to ascribe a motive that he might hold for saying this horrible thing, the single most revealing sentiment he has expressed so far in his political life, except maybe holding a lavish State Ramadan Dinner after refusing to host the traditional non-sectarian National Prayer Breakfast at the White House.

People, this man (and I use the term in the biological sense only) has just given the green light to our enemy, global Islamic Jihadists, to come over here an take a shot at us.

Here's how it would happen.

It isn't going to be a sophisticated attack like 9-11, but it will likely be more deadly. The next attack will resemble the Palestinian Intefadas, or uprisings, which have cost Israel a significant part of their resources to fight off, including human resources.

On a given day, probably some Islamic mullah's birthday or similar, likely during our Christmas season, a large number of the estimated 10,000 Islamic illegal aliens we have here* will take their Jihadist actions, all at a certain hour on a certain day. Most of them will get into their cars or trucks or SUVs, head for the nearest crowded shopping mall, and commit mass assault by auto on as many citizens as they can find bunched together at one place, maybe several places if they are skillful drivers. Others may use firearms to accomplish mass murder at crowded locations.

The Islamic world will cheer after these coordinated attacks, all of us will mourn, but one man (in the biological sense only) will shrug it off. After all, he has already told us that it doesn't matter, "we can absorb another attack".

I rate the chances of this happening within the next two-plus years of the Obama presidency as at least 50-50. The only unpredictable detail would be the extent of the attack(s). After the initial attack, some of the left-edge groups would probably join in, trying to take out THEIR targets, namely you and I.

What can YOU do about this predictable turn of events BEFORE it happens? Easy answer: "harden the target". Get armed, if you are not already. Stay away from crowded venues if you can, especially the public approaches to those venues that are vehicle-accessible. You will not be able to depend on your local authorities to stop this form of mayhem, simply because other than the time and date of the opening of hostilities, all the attackers will operate as lone assassins. Our Casper Milktoast internal intelligence apparatus can't (and now, WON'T) be tracking these individuals, who have blended into our communities. Their chosen weapon, motor vehicles, can't be banned, although you might look for the Government to give them serious aid and comfort by trying to suspend the Second Amendment (and probably the First, as well).

President Obama gave us hints of his mindset before, but this new book by Woodward gives us all we need to know: protecting the USA is NOT his top priority, sliming us all down into a socialist hell is, and so we can't trust him to protect us.

For that, Mr Obama deserves to be fired, but we can't do that for two more years. We'll have to be content with the next best thing: firing all his sycophants in the Congress, and in our State and local governments as well.

Front us every politician running for office, of either political party, ans ask them their reaction to the words Woodward wrote, and the quote from Obama. Ask those pols what they think of Obama's leadership qualities. If you get any answer other than that Obama ought to resign the office immediately, write that politician off your list to support. In fact, do better than that: support their opponent. Now, I imagine that Democrat pols of good character will run as fast as they can from Obama now, if they haven't already, but ask them anyway, and pin them down: do they support a weak American President who will do nothing more than mouth a few words during or after such an attack, or sic the ineffectual Homeland Security sturmtruppen on US, NOT THE BAD GUYS, or will they take a principled stand and openly criticize the President for his shameful and cowardly attitude.

It's up to us now, people, we can't depend on the leadership any longer. Keep your heads about you, go armed in public, after practicing with those arms**, and above all, ALL use your senses to keep yourself out of harm's way. We aren't looking for this fight, but we don't have to, it will be brought TO us.

God save our souls.

_______________________________________________________

*I read an intelligence estimate gleaned from stats from the Border Patrol's actual captures of illegal invaders, and as a percentage of the ADMITTED 12,000,000 illegals here already, there are likely 10,000 Middle Eastern men between the ages of 17 and 40. Yes, I do, in fact, believe that each and every one of those middle-easterners is a potential Jihadist.

** Practice precision shooting at small targets crossing in front of you with regular motion, as in being able to reliably hit a target through a moving window. This probably can't be practiced at most ranges, but you CAN get most of the practice to enable this skill just by practicing shooting at a small target while on the move. Remember that the assassin's vehicle will be moving, and you have to hit HIM to stop the attack. No one carries a concealed handgun powerful enough to stop an engine, that's only in the movies. If you are targeted by such a vehicle-borne assassin while in a crowd, draw your weapon and move laterally away from the crowd, preferably so the assassin has to pass between you and the crowd. You will then have a clear shot as he passes. Your shot-fall background won't be entirely safe, but in this case, you've got to take that chance. Just qualifying with and carrying your pistol doesn't cut it. You have to actually be able to win a battle, under any attack scenario, with that gun you're carrying. Is it enough gun? Can you hit a moving target with it? Answer both of those questions "yes", and you have prepared to do your part when we are attacked again.